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Monday, June 1, 2015

Supreme Court throws out Facebook threat conviction

The Supreme Court ruled today in favor of a Pennsylvania man who posted several violent messages on Facebook and was convicted under a federal threat statute -- the first time the Court raised the implications of free speech on social media, reported CNN.
I wrote about this case last December.

The Court said that it wasn't enough to convict the man based solely on the idea that a reasonable person would regard his communications as a threat.

"Our holding makes clear that negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. img alt="Chief Justice reads Eminem lyrics" class="media__image" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/120627090500-healthcare-coverage-09-john-roberts--story-top.jpg">

The Court held that the legal standard used to convict him was too low, but left open what the standard should be. It is a narrow ruling and the Court did not address the larger constitutional issue.

The case concerns a Pennsylvania man, Anthony D. Elonis, who posted several violent messages on his social media account after his wife left him. He claimed he was an artist who turned to rap lyrics for therapeutic purposes to help him cope with depression.

"There¹s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you," he wrote in one post.

"Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined," he wrote in another.

He was convicted for violating a federal threat statute.

He said that a statute that limits speech "without regard to the speaker¹s intended meaning" runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is "crudely or zealously expressed."

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.